


A Blighted Future

by taehly



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Evil Alistair, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 22:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4895593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taehly/pseuds/taehly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair is a good warden. A good soldier. A fine man. These are things that are proven over and over. Now...<br/>What if he wasn't?<br/>((AU story.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Theft of a Prince

**Author's Note:**

> This is an older story of mine that I started. It's a little roughshod, but the premise is pretty unique I'd like to think. ConCrit is welcome. If a picture of the female darkspawn mentioned by name is needed, send me a PM or something and I'll give you the link. Also I apologize for how short this is. I'll try working in more detail later.

_In the beginning there was darkness, a substantial lack of life, light and other such meager happiness. There was only The Call and the furious song of The Father, their God, the unending pulse of command that drove them to madness. They strove to resurrect the call but they hated it, wanted to taint it but even after the tainting the song still hurt them, twisting in their souls until their outward appearance was a perfect rendition of their inner turmoil. This went on for many centuries, generations of soldiers being bred with the simple mission of destruction._

_But one believed, and He believed that His brethren, His trapped children were worth so much more than slavery and destruction and so He took aside a few of His blood-lusting sons and daughters, bringing to them a cup of ancient power, of legend and they, the children, drank from it and no longer did they hear the tainted song of the God. And so with this magical chalice He brought intelligence to the ranks of His people, and soon they lost the desire for the old Gods no longer being driven solely on the song of the Gods, no longer needing it for a purpose._

The babe squalled in Grenger's hands, and she curled her claws over his pale pink body to keep the child close to her chest. She could hear the Hunters, the mortal-kind that plague the planet with their ideals and hate, ignorance and Their prejudice of her people. Granger was one of the Chosen, borne of the Mothers with an exceptional beauty. She stands a little over 7 feet in height with a toned body, a blue-ish purple tinge to her skin, wild black hair and eyes the color of a fire spun ruby. She and her sisters resembled human women the most, speaking the human tongue easily because they lacked the fangs that the rest of their dark brothers and sisters were born with. Her metal legs sparked up along the stone wall of the mortal King's palace, using her clawed hand as leverage to maneuver her and the babe from the grasp of the mortal knight-Hunters.

This had been a risky mission, a suicide to enter such a protected mortal settlement, to steal a babe from the teat of it's mother. She cradled the babe closer, humming into his hair to calm him. Granger flees into the forest, feeling the Song of her brothers to welcome her back underground, into safety.

As she descends, the earth is restored from their entry point and the babe screams all the louder as darkness consumes them, the heady and musky smell of wet earth like a comforting mother, wrapping her arms around Granger, welcoming her home.

"Hush, little one, you are safe now. No more running." The darkspawn says softly, trying to silence the sobbing babe. She strokes her human fingers through his silky sandy hair, marveling at the feel of it. As they reach the enclave, her honor guard disbands and Grenger takes the winding path to the Father's quarters.

"Father, I do not know how to make it stop crying!" The Architect gives her a quick smile as he moves to his daughter, to the small babe in her arms. It's small fat face was wet with tears and fingers curled into tinier fists.

"You have pupped recently, yes Grenger?" The Architect asks, so the female nods. She had just given birth to her first daughter.

"I believe he is hungry, child, you should feed him. Give him your breast to suckle, begin the induction. Soon he will your son in blood." the Architect stated to Grenger, who stared quizzically down at the child.

"Do you think he will take the milk, Father?" Grenger asks, watching the scrunched up sobbing face, and freed one of her breasts from it's confines, guiding the infants head to her nipple. There was a small jerk and the boy began to drink from her, the feeling that bloomed inside her was protectiveness and possessiveness - "Look! He takes to it quickly, doesn't he?"

The Architect chuckles and touches his daughters shoulder, "We've so much to plan for him, such a future awaits him." Grenger nods, and the Architect continues with a thoughtful tone. "We will be our salvation from the Human horde, and we will take back the lands that are ours. No longer will we be slayed by marauding knights. No more will we be forced to live in darkness and to feast upon dead things. We will make our utopia, Grenger, if it means wiping away the stain of humanity forever!"


	2. A Dark Ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Alistair, or now known as Asdel. Retaining the innocence of a child while growing up in the dark is hard, and Asdel will make a sacrifice.

****

The murmur of the darkling Princesses was like the calming burble of a creek, calming the dream-startled boy as he lay in his mother’s bed, feeling the nightmare surging through his veins. The call of the God, his Father had told him. When the darklings finally turned against the God, Asdel would take His place, and would lead his people to Utopia. Asdel was still just a boy, only seven years old but he was being trained and prepared for the destiny laid before him. But for the child it is hard for him to see this supposed light in the darkness, pale from having never seen the sun before - mage light from the emissary’s and fire being the primary light sources down in the Deep Roads.

He would become their God, their general and Asdel would bring them back the light. But as a child he had his doubts, and they were many, because he knew he looked different from his brothers and sisters of the darkling horde with his smooth skin and ugly, scarless face. His teeth were smooth and flat like a burden beasts', his body smaller and more fragile than his age-same kin, but the Father had told him many times that this too would come to pass and that Asdel would become more and more like his kin, smelling less like an outsider as the years pass.

Asdel reaches up to touch the scar where Turoles had pierced him with their training knives in a moment of self loathing, remembering the shock and private dismay his blood was red, spicy with the scent of copper - even within he was different, his kins' oil black blood taunting him. His mother, Grenger, told him (always tells him) it is because he is different that he lead them, that because his body is different from his kin-mates, he will pass unnoticed by the Human horde until they were too late in seeing the threat.

But as a boy of seven it is terribly difficult to find solace in the fact that he is not the same, that he is and will always be different. His amber eyes fill with tears, as he is trying to dash them away before they fall. Tears are a weakness that his kin do not share with him, for the boy never saw tears shed in private by one of the darker kin not even over the loss of another. There is no weakness in the ranks of the darklings, no room for anything other than duty and rage.

Unable to  get back to sleep, he broke from the comfortable tangle of sheets and set his bare feet onto the stone floor beneath him moving silently like Tarden, the shriek elder, had taught him. Asdel nodded some of the lounging Princesses, admiring the blue and silvers of their skin, the shock of color for their hair and their bejeweled eyes, which watch him like one would watch an untamed beast of the surface; wary, distrusting. His sisters bore him no love, and often went out of their own way to show him their discontent with his presence. His blood-sister, Merne, was one of the Princesses that cared for him, the second being his mother.

As he moves through the cavernous tunnels, he can feel the soft press of minds against his own, the near-silent strains of the Song. His kin that it aches in their bones, in their minds, always pushing and present, never to be ignored, and Asdel mourns every moment that the Song does not pass through him.

'You are still too human, my Asdel, you will not hear the Song in it's completion until we have purged the last of your humanity out of you.' the Architect had told him after the boy questioned about the song he could just almost not hear.

He smells the Architect's laboratory before he sees it, the pungent aromas that make him dizzy, standing in the mouth of the cave as he awaits permission to enter. Amber eyes take in the stolen human alchemical sets, bubbling merrily with various liquids. When his eyes set upon his mother, surprise lights his young features, but he does not say anything. She is always a welcome sight in the tunnels, but she does not see him yet, so intent on whatever it is the Father says to her, her ruby eyes focused on his face, lips turned in a frown.

"Boy, it is good you have come. Come in, sit. It is time we began your treatments. Your mother has fought me long enough on your age." The Architect's smooth voice crawls in the candlelit cave, lifting a vial full of viscous dark fluid. Asdel startles, not knowing how the Father could see him with his back turned, but Asdel feels both abashed and embarrassed at having been caught standing in the dark like some sneak thief. When Asdel enters, the warmth of the laboratory washes over him and sends away his chill.

He is directed to a crudely constructed chair, if one could call it that, twisted wood and metals forming the object, heavy leather straps that could pin someone to it’s unforgiving frame. Asdel swallows his nervousness, fear causing a sweat to break out upon his face but he sits in the chair nonetheless. He was asked, and Asdel would do as he is told, thus is his obedience to the Father. The Father is wiser than Asdel, and the child would be a fool to question him.

"Grenger, his arms if you please." Asdel does not speak even as his mother begins to bind his arms to the chair, and she offers him a soft comforting smile, stroking his sandy hair back in a way that settles his nervousness. The implicit trust he has for his mother was the first lesson ever taught to him even before he could crawl. There is one around the chest, his ankles and his forehead. The sour stink of his nervousness returning must have reached the Architect for he turned and stared at the boy with limpid grey eyes.

"I know you are frightened child, but I implored your mother to start the treatments the moment we took you from her breast. Your blood still has not changed enough to suit our purposes, you are still entirely too human for us..for our goal." The figure moved through the shadows gathering things. A silver goblet was then lowered into the vision of Asdel, who marveled for he'd never seen such a fine thing.

"The humans have a barbaric ritual wherein they drink our blood and the blood of an Archdemon, poisoning themselves so they can better hunt us. Grey Wardens." The name is spoken sadly, pityingly. "We have a ritual that is the same. But it is hard to capture Warden and keep them alive long enough to administer the cure for our madness. Which is where you come in, my sweet boy. You have integrated well, but you are still too different. Within this goblet is the purest blood of an Old God, drained before the taint had poisoned it." Asdel nods shakily.

"Am I...am I to drink it, Father?" He asks, his voice mouse quiet in the echoing cavern. The Architect graces him with a smile, and Asdel warms to it. "Yes, my boy, you will be drinking it. I will also be altering you, forcing your body to be one with our darkness. You will become a God, Asdel. Our God."

The words stunned the bound boy but he did not speak. "The ritual must begin, but I will not have you ruling alone. The power is much too great for one body. You will soon have brothers, Asdel. Four children will be gathered to stand by your side and lead our armies. Four to lead the separate divisions; Ogre, Shriek, Genloc and Hurlock and one to rule them all. You. You will be our God, our king..the first. We have the first two boys, named Gehrig and Ochren. You will meet them soon." Asdel nods in understanding.

The Architect circled a hand over the goblet and the smell burned Asdel's nose as it was ferried to his mouth by the Architect's hand. Asdel opened his mouth obediently and drank from the goblet, gagging and choking at the viscous liquid that would not obediently go down his throat. It felt like it was fighting him every step of the way, burning his throat, his belly, even his lips but the Architect simply held the cup to Asdel's lips and forced him to continue drinking until at last, it was over. Tears sting his eyes as the empty goblet is pulled from him, Asdel gasping for air. The Architect strokes his hair, smiles at him proudly, and Asdel reels from the desire to keep that expression on the elder’s face.

His mother strokes his cheek, stepping away from the chair. “I am so proud of you, Asdel, my darling.” She says, and Asdel is almost moved to tears by how much he can hear it in her voice. After a moment of silence, the Architect places his hand on Asdel’s head.

"You are ready now. I will begin the ritual."

The magic came crashing into the child's body, and his screams were inhuman. Pain wracked him until tears came, blood rebelled in his throat and he thought himself consumed by acid. He screamed and screamed, fighting his bonds trying to escape the acute agony in his every cell. He screamed until his screams stopped and everything stopped. It felt as though every inch of his body was fighting the spell, until finally time, the pain, his mind all stopped and the room swam in colors before darkness took him. He is gone from consciousness before he can hear the words, spoken in reverence and pride.

  
"He survived. He is ready to lead us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am briefly mention two new characters that will be introduced, Gehrig and Ochren. These roles will be played by Hawke, hence the Dragon Age 2 tag, and Male Cousland from the Noble human origin starter. There will also be two more characters introduced in the next chapter, the next set of the 'brothers'. There is a reason for this, and I will touch on it. I am loftily trying to attempt to bring several origin starters together. The main Warden will be the City Elf, and this Tabris will in fact gather the other origin starters to be in their party. I have not determined what gender this Tabris will be yet. The Warden will be, in a sense, the antagonist in this story.  
> Please tell me how I am doing so far, it's been a long time since I've had the courage to post anything.


	3. Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the brothers that will be more prevalent in the story as it unfolds!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize for how short each chapter has been, and how very little information there is. These three chapters were all written a long time ago, I only just recently unearthed an email containing the third chapter - all written on my iPod. So I'd say they're pretty good size for the length they are. Please stay tuned and be patient, there will be better and longer chapters ahead!  
> All old chapters are unbeta'd, newer chapters will be beta'd.

Little more than six years had passed since the first violent ritual, and many more have followed it, altering Asdel more and more until the sweet amber of his eyes was awashed in black, like a dollop of gold floating in tar. His blood had blackened, thickening with the stench of his kin, scaly legions dotting up his back and consuming his right shoulder, turning the skin leathery and tough. His right hand had changed too much, too quickly, adopting the gnarled look of dragon talons and was covered in thick black scales. The boy of seven was now an adolescent of 13, closer to manhood than ever. Six years of vicious beatings and training sessions to make him stronger had left him near beast like in his rampaging anger on the training field.

His training also consisted of book learning, the Architect personally overseeing his education. At this time, his elder brother was making substantial headway into his book learning - Gehrig was already well versed in penmanship and reading, having not been taken from his human parents until he was eight years old, a year older than Asdel. Gehrig's young age made the indoctrination easier, the transition from human to darkspawn swifter. Then there were the other boys. Ochren, Datzig, and young Sedaren. Ochren was now 12 and well into his rituals, and by far was Asdel's most favorite brother. Ochren had an odd propensity for cruelty, his amber eyes filled with a nasty hatred for the surfacers, and this would please Asdel enough to lay with the younger man and stroke his fingers through the fine dark hair on his head, humming his approval. Datzig - the elven one - was quiet enough to be forgotten until he spoke in deep rich tones, accented by another country.

Sedaren and Datzig were respectively 11 and each immersed into their ritual training. Datzig was a slender elf, not made for the sword Tarden would say and Figit, their master bowman, had made mention that he could not wait to sweep him up for training. Ochren was Tarden's student for now, since Asdel had now moved on from the old shriek to the harder Vanguard, Dooley. The Hurlock was a special breed, a natural leader with a spine as stiff and powerful as steel. He was an unforgiving master combat trainer but Asdel knew that if he shed enough blood in the arena with Dooley, never flinching back, he would gain the Hurlock's respect.

Now Sedaren, the apple of his mother's eye, was a chubby cheeked blond haired boy with the same amber eyes as Asdel and Ochren. He was intelligent and study in his build, even as a toddler, and when the baby fat had melted away under the training, he bloomed into a large young man - broad shouldered and thickly muscled, made for swinging sword and shield. He of all of them, had been the worst coddled, most spoilt of the five of them. The Princesses adored his long lashes and his silk fine hair. So lost in his thoughts that Asdel had made an almost fatal mistake - he had taken his focus off his battle master.

A hard smack with the flat of Dooley's sword sent Asdel sprawling to the dirt of the training ring, and the boy spit out thick black blood and probed the cut on his lip with his forking tongue, giving a reptilian hiss as the cut mended itself. The Vanguard snorted at him, spinning his two swords in gauntleted hands and motioning for the boy to charge again. Asdel rolls to his feet, darting forward and slamming his body into the Vanguard's shield, driving the Hurlock across the dirt towered the edge of the ring. The pommel of Dooley's sword crashes against his head - a glancing blow that Asdel shakes off, the thud of the pommel against his shoulder is a dull pain easily ignored.

The Vanguard fights Asdel every inch the boy gains, struggling against the sheer bullheadedness that this move displays. Asdel drops to the ground to evade a sweeping cut to his head, scissor-kicking the Vanguard's legs to pull him to the ground. The Vanguard falls to a knee with a hard grunt, making a movement with his sword arm only to freeze as the delicate edge of Asdel's dagger presses against his neck. The glass blade was fragile but sharp as anything, able to wrench through even Dooley's tough hide like it were made of clouds. The Vanguard turns his black pits upwards to the pulsing glow of oilfire eyes, the upturn of human lips. Though waiting for his life to end, Dooley felt proud to notice how much of the human inside the boy had decayed, making him more and more into one of them.

"You're dead, Dooley." The boy intones, "Match over." Those were the words spoken when no more moves were to be made by either party, and as Dooley watches Asdel replace his glass dagger, he internally breathes a sigh of relief. The boy helps the old Hurlock to his feet, pressing their foreheads together. They breathe eachothers breath only for moments before saluting the other, and Asdel leaves the training ring, a crude construct of wooden beams and rope. He doesn't look back. Datzig stands at the mouth of the training room, his green eyes watching as Asdel approaches. A nod from the older boy has his younger brother at his heels.

"You defeated him them?" Datzig asks, and Asdel smirks. Datzig nods a little, "Father has requested you. He has gathered the other boys. He says it is time we were bound to you." Asdel looks surprised - so soon? There had been talking of a ritual to bind his brothers to his blood, to complete the rituals that would make them truly his kin, to bind them as his generals as the Vanguards and Emissaries would do with a poisoned old God, to know it through and through.

"Then let us make haste, Datzig. It would be unwise to keep Father waiting. Today has been long since coming. Soon it will be time to take command. Our time of greatness is arriving, my brother." He squeezes Datzig's shoulder, watches the answering grin bloom on the elf's face. "Today you become my general. Today marks the day that changes all of us."

Their joyous laughter rings through the warren's twisting hallways - merely children in the eyes of a society they were lost to, but soon they would be approaching adulthood in the eyes of their black blooded kin. They would be worthy of respect.

If they survived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A refresher on who these boys are:
> 
> Mortals turned darkspawn :  
> Asdel - Alistair Theirin  
> Gehrig - Male Cousland  
> Ochren - Garrett Hawke  
> Sedaren - Cullen Rutherford  
> Datzig - Fenris
> 
> Darkspawn battle masters:   
> Dooley - Hurlock Vanguard  
> Tarden - Shriek Rogue  
> Figit - Genloc Bowman  
>    
> I will keep putting this down below, along with other characters that may have alternate names.


End file.
